Why Migrate WordPress?

If you’ve been utilizing WordPress for your Internet business or freelance development for any length of time, it’s likely that at some point you’ve had troubles with your web hosting company.

Let’s face it, sometimes bad things happen to web hosting companies.

That’s all part of the business we’re in, but what is the tipping point and when do you decide you’ve had enough headaches?

In this post we’ll explore the most popular reasons that people decide to migrate WordPress to a new hosting company.

1. Speed Issues

Have you ever had your visitors report that your site was loading slow?

We have too and it sucks. Especially when those visitors are potential customers wanting to opt in to your email list, leave a comment, or purchase a product.

There’s nothing more frustrating for a user than waiting for a page to load. Attention spans are short these days.

Speed doesn’t only matter on the frontend of your site either. I’ve been known to pull a gray hair or two when WAITING for a post draft to save on a site experiencing speed issues.

I’m betting you have too.

2. Traffic Increases and Scalability

The speed issues above can be directly caused by a poorly optimized server or one that’s simply overloaded with other customer sites, but it can also come from increased traffic to your site.

To be clear, an increase in traffic is definitely a great thing! Perhaps your article got picked up and shared on Reddit or some other high trafficked website, or perhaps you’re just a whiz at marketing your site.

Whatever the reason, when your traffic increases, so does the load on the server and the resources it consumes.

Some hosts, especially one that you may have used when you were first starting out, aren’t equipped to handle traffic increases like other hosting companies.

3. Website Downtime

Are you seeing a trend here?

One issue can cause or exacerbate another and often times, this can result in a website that is completely inaccessible.

Both to your current and potential customers, and to you and your business team.

A friend of mine just recently experienced this exact situation. They brokered a large promotional deal that sent over 30,000 leads to their product landing page and guess what they say when they got there?

Nothing. As in a blank white page.

What do you think that did for his conversions?

Worse yet, what impression did that give to his potential customers?

4. Terrible Support

So if you’ve ever experienced any of the issues above, what’s your first move?

Contact your web hosting support right?

This is where some additional disconnects can start to arise, especially when WordPress hosting comes into play.

Unfortunately, like most customer service portals these days, you always have to start with a first level of support, even if it’s a recurring issue that you’ve opened a support request for in the past.

This probably goes without saying, but you should be hosting with a company that offers phone support and not just email. At the very least, they should offer Live Chat so your not left wondering when you’ll get an email reply.

5. Lack of WordPress Knowledge

Ok, so your host offers you stellar support for issues with email, cPanel, Addon domains, etc. But what happens when you have a WordPress-specific issue and you find that your host (and their support technicians) have little or no familiarity with WordPress and all that it entails?

Uh oh.

Now, to be fair, most hosts and their support agents simply cannot be experts in every piece of web publishing software. However, with the popularity of WordPress it would be safe to assume that most hosting companies should have familiarity with WordPress installations and how to best optimize and troubleshoot them when things aren’t going as expected.

Unfortunately, the lack of basic WordPress troubleshooting knowledge has even plagued some hosts who specialize in Managed WordPress Hosting. It’s most likely indicative of growing too big too fast, but only time will tell.

6. Security

And here we are. Server security as it relates to WordPress website hosting companies. No small subject.

To be clear, no one…and I mean no one is immune to security threats and hack attempts, no matter what software is being utilized.

Remember the Heart Bleed bug that threw the entire Internet into a frenzy recently?

The difference in hosting companies all comes down to focus. Is their focus on proactively providing security at every point of weakness, or do they simply react when something goes wrong?

7. Cost

Finally, let’s talk about cost. One reason to migrate WordPress to another host is because you’re simply not paying enough every month.

What did he just say!?

It may seem counter-intuitive to want to pay more, but think about it for just a second.

The cost applied to any service is directly related to the valueprovided bythat service (insert grain of salt here as all services are definitely not the same in regard to value, but generally speaking, this is true).

Put another way, would you rather pay $9.95 per month knowing that at some point you’ll need to spend time troubleshooting an issue, submitting and replying to support tickets, or constantly monitoring the uptime and performance of your site…

..OR…

Would you rather pay a higher rate for the added value of knowing that your site is always fast, always optimized, and if something goes wrong, the support staff will be knowledgeable and capable of fixing any issues fast?

Yes, me too.

Summary

When moving hosts you’ll likely pick the one that you find is a best fit for your site and your business.

This is great BUT you need to make sure whoever is helping you to move your site knows the ins and outs of the host you choose.

You’ll find plenty of folks willing to help you migrate your WordPress site for beans, but most will just move your bags from one place to another, wave and walk away.

Finding someone who can optimize your site specifically for your new host during and after migration is essential.

WP Valet has relationships with the majority of the hosts out there and have made it our goal to not just migrate your site, but Opti-migrate it.